Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. Scroll down for links to book reviews, Native media, and more.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Congratulations to Louise Erdrich! Chickadee was selected as the recipient of the 2013 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. From the Horn Book website:

The 2013 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction goes to Louise Erdrich for Chickadee, published by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. The annual award, created by Scott O’Dell and Zena Sutherland in 1982 and now administered by Elizabeth Hall, carries with it a prize of $5000, and goes to the author of a distinguished work of historical fiction for young people published by a U. S. publisher and set in the Americas. This is the second O’Dell Award for Louise Erdrich; she won it in 2006 for The Game of Silence, also published by Harper. (The honors don’t stop there; Erdrich also just won the 2012 National Book Award for her adult novel The Round House.)

Here's more from their remarks about the book:

The book has humor and suspense (and disarmingly simple pencil illustrations by the author), providing a picture of 1860s Anishinabe life that is never didactic or exotic and is briskly detailed with the kind of information young readers enjoy: who knew, for example, that an oxcart train would be so loud, or that mosquitoes could be so terrifying? Anishanabe beliefs about the spiritual connections between humans and the natural world are conveyed matter-of-factly as Chickadee gets help and encouragement from his namesake bird; the Christian faith of the “Black Robes” is also given nuance and respect. Chickadee’s first taste of a peppermint stick in the burgeoning city of St. Paul is just one sign of the increasingly multicultural nature of his family’s world, a world that we hope this author continues to chronicle.

In September, 2012, Martha V. Parravano of Horn Book interviewed Erdrich. Check it out, too! In the interview, she says that her next book will be titled Makoons. In it she says that she will be "writing from the living memory" of her relatives. Her writing is exquisite. It'll be hard to wait, but also something to look forward to!Five questions for Louise Erdrich

First Peoples listed AICL as one of the Top Five Native Blogs and Podcast to follow. School Library Journal's Elizabeth Burns featured AICL as her Blog of the Day on July 2, 2007, and in 2007, the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children invited Debbie to write a blog post for their site.

American Indian? Or, Native American? There is no agreement among Native peoples. Both are used. It is best to be specific. Example: Instead of "Debbie Reese, a Native American," say "Debbie Reese, a Nambe Pueblo Indian woman."